PREGNANT VACUUM

It is hot this morning.  It’s been a strange spring in Taos.  Now a dry winter is an even dryer summer.  There are four forest fires within 80 miles and the smoke taints the usually high-resolution sharpness of a normal Taos sky.  

Each year is different.  The drought toughened some of my plant friends and did in others.  Survival of the fittest I suppose.  But what is needed to survive changes from year to year? There is also a law of attraction and right now, I’m attracting cats.  The little black cat with the cropped left ear is growing larger and her coat is getting shiny, a sure sign of improved health.  The others, Yellow and White still visit frequently, and a big Tabby Tom is now hanging out in the neighborhood.  He seems mild tempered, shy but possibly homeless. He meows as if lonesome, not the caterwaul of a male looking for a girlfriend.  He has an unusual face that reminds me of a Tibetan Fox.  I’m not encouraging him and hope that he has a real home and just likes to visit.

Sentinel

I really need to learn the secret of attracting money.  I’m pretty good at attracting many things but money is the great challenge.  I know this is all about the major life step that I’m supposed to master next. Two days ago, I suddenly saw an image of myself as a little girl pretending to know what she was doing because she had to.  Up until that moment, I took for granted that I lacked confidence in dealing with the need for money. I’ve been feeling sad and guilty because the money I inherited from the sale of my parent’s house after mom passed, is gone.  PQ and I don’t have enough SS and SSI income to live on. There have been nightmares about having to be a shop girl again or possibly a receptionist in some office.  I almost talked myself into accepting this fate and then realized that my current life style would make this challenging.  The old days of painting until 2:30 am and beyond every night and then working all day, are over. I can’t pull it off physically anymore. Furthermore, PQ isn’t able to do much physical work around the house and property and I have to fill in the gaps. I stay quite busy just handling every day tasks and I’ve become attached to writing and painting as well. Worst of all, we would have to give up traveling to Arizona or even Santa Fe whenever the opportunity comes up. 

One morning, after a sleepless night it dawned on me that my so-called “higher self” is responsible for setting up this crisis and when it rains, it pours. The Photoshop program that I rely on for editing web graphics and photos suddenly quit working and so did our water heater. It looked like we would need several hundred dollars that we don’t have.  In addition, the kids didn’t have money for gas this month and we helped them out with a couple of small tanks to tide them over until Jay’s check comes in.   Well, nature abhors a vacuum so we’ve taken care of that requirement.

Any kind of personal progress is like peeling an onion. Just when you feel that you know your issues, some event pops up to expose assumptions previously overlooked. Usually it’s something like the ugly wall paper in your grandma’s living room, taken for granted and never noticed until some unexpected light reveals that it should go. I guess this means that I’m ready to dissolve the assumption that I can’t make money in a manner that allows me to be myself. Ironic isn’t it, this should still be an issue after I’m technically retired? As it turned out the Photoshop disaster was the result of installing another external hard drive. The program detected a change in the computer’s configuration and demanded reactivation. I had an older version and Adobe no longer maintains servers to activate its older versions. It took about a day and a half to go through the help forum to learn this but on the bright side, I discovered that it was actually possible to download a free version slightly newer than mine from Adobe exactly for this occurrence. Fixing the water heater wasn’t free but we discovered that we had been seriously overcharged by the guys who worked on it last year and they set it up to go out again in about a year. It now has a more reliable thermocouple. It is the Devil’s job to challenge change. You must truly mean it to pass the test.

Something is always missing. Out of the vastness of creation, we sense and crave the parts that fail us or more accurately, those we fail.  They are the key to wholeness. This is a hunger, desire, and often a misdirected obsession. But, the latter is extreme. Often the missing pieces are so far back in the shadows that we don’t recognize them and attempt to fill our vague yearnings with something familiar or officially sanctioned. This operates on the cultural and planetary levels, as well.

The earth is disturbed and we humans are disturbed because of it. After all she is our life source but Somehow, we fail to get the connection.  Our future (if we are to have one) demands a new set of values. The scientific priesthood teaches us that nature is just a lifeless material resource for us to bend, use and arrange at our convenience. It is implied that we are so special and so smart that we can become like gods (thus we have no need for a supreme being). There is ultimately nothing we can’t do eventually. In the meantime, those that live outside the highflying temples of science are having a harder and harder time.  Weather is becoming extreme, and who will be able to recoup the damages as tornados, floods, forest fires, and drought make life ever more difficult and repairing the damages more costly on an already strained economy. So far, I don’t think we have a very good grade as gods in training, maybe a D minus.   

Surely it makes sense that any genuine god must be inside as well as outside, and otherwise quite unlike the traditional aloof father figure to be avoided except in crisis situations or when in need of special favors. The less we understand of ourselves, the less we are able to connect with our source.  We have lost empathy with our own nature and thus we lose connection with the natural systems that created and support us. Is this insane?  Of course, it is, but unlike the depressed and psychotic people among us that are sensitive enough to mirror the state of things, there aren’t any pills to suppress symptoms of the social insanity we live with and that has put us in a dangerous situation.

Science and the corporations have replaced the church in the role of heavenly father but the belief that we must be disconnected from our support system, our Mother Earth hasn’t changed. We are screwed if Mother Earth and Father Sky can’t be reconciled and live happily ever after. For now, It’s hell cause we kids are caught in the middle.

Chinese Sage Chuang Tze comments on the questionable nature of social position and approval:

King Wei of Chu, having heard of the ability of Chuang Tze, sent messengers with large gifts to bring him to his court, and promising also that he would make him his chief minister. Chuang-Tze, however, only laughed and said to them, "A thousand ounces of silver are a great gain to me; and to be a high noble and minister is a most honorable position. But have you not seen the victim-ox for the border sacrifice? It is carefully fed for several years, and robed with rich embroidery that it may be fit to enter the Grand Temple. When the time comes for it to do so, it would prefer to be a little pig, but it cannot get to be so. Go away quickly, and do not soil me with your presence. I had rather amuse and enjoy myself in the midst of a filthy ditch than be subject to the rules and restrictions in the court of a sovereign. I have determined never to take office, but prefer the enjoyment of my own free will.

It would seem that the desirable situation is to be free to be what one is and acquire the necessary elements to fulfill that goal without becoming a sacrificial ox.

SPRING CLEANING

We are in Cottonwood again.  It feels fabulous to be here and yet there is a lifestyle storm brewing. I hope it is a spring storm ready to awaken dormant life.  While at home in Taos, rain clouds surround us but fail to deliver to the center where we live. We watch it coming toward the mountains north of us in Hondo and Arroyo Seco, across the river to the west on the mesa and over the gorge toward Tres Piedres and in the south mountains toward Mora.  We live in a dry doughnut hole.  Yet, personally as well as meteorologically, the climate is showing signs of change.

Two nights ago, I was awake much of the night, twisting and turning pursued by ghouls, bad memories, aching bones and terrible projections of a fated future that pulls me down to the worst of the  past.  The money from my mom’s property is gone and we are back to our meager SS and SSI checks that come to about half of what is needed to cover the bills. Taking inventory, I remember that we may need to be prepared to pay rent on an apartment in Denver or Tucson if and while PQ recovers from a lung transplant, and will he ever get on the active list for a lung transplant anyway? He is already over the recommended age limit and hasn’t achieved the weight loss that would qualify him to be on the active list. Also, what if we are trapped to our last breath supporting our houses that now seem like albatrosses on steroids hanging around our necks?  One is a Reservation HUD house and the other is a Habitat for Humanity house and we can never sell or rent them.  Everything about our life suddenly seems to quake on the edge of catastrophe, or so it seems when shutting off the lights and pulling up the covers.

Now with a focused and over amped imagination, I mentally reviewed shops and galleries in town where I might apply for work. The gut response was Uhhhgg!  Reentering that life of standing all day,  making small talk with tourists, dusting merchandise, straitening pictures, sweeping the floor when business is slow plus delivering the same spiel to everyone who walks through the door again and again all for slightly over minimum wage and no benefits is beyond unappealing. I did it in one place or another for over 20 years and I was now evaluating whether survival was really worth doing it again.  Amended to this procession of petrifying possibilities; what if I lose a front tooth that has needed fixing for almost 10 years, then I’ll be too ugly to work in a shop or gallery, or what if one of our seemingly minor health issues turns out not to be minor.  I haven’t had health insurance since I left ARCO 30 years ago. PQ’s insurance is very basic but at least he is an Indian and qualifies for Indian Health Services, questionable as they are. I once read a humorous astrological article stating that those born under the sign of Cancer need to binge on awful possibilities now and then. I have Moon conjunct Jupiter rising in Cancer, a triple whammy.  If I’ve shared that quote before it’s because it calms me down to blame the Moon.

As we started down Oak Creek Canyon, PQ said, “I don’t want you to get a job in a shop. I think we should start doing workshops at home, maybe doing spiritual tours of Taos and continue to work on finding outlets for our art.” This felt very comforting coming from my husband.   Here is someone who loves me and doesn’t want to sacrifice me to the gods of petty change. Along with thoughts about getting a job, I realized I’d been worrying about how I could also keep up with my household tasks. Painting and writing would probably go and of course how could I travel to Arizona, be there to help with PQ’s art shows and ultimately travel to another state if and when he has a lung transplant if I’m tied down to a day job with a narrow margin of survival.

We continued to talk about moneymaking possibilities.  I noticed myself edging toward the dangerous drop. My personal black hole is closer than it’s been for a long time.  I saw that while PQ believed that we could succeed, I wasn’t so sure. I thought of all sorts of things that could go wrong.

PQ at the bar, 15.Quince's New Digs

Now that we are in Cottonwood for a few days the dark cloud has lifted, a beam of light is shining through. It isn’t that anything concrete has changed but I recognized after laying out my doubts that I’ve always secretly believed that the world out there would have no tolerance for my personal offerings and preferences. PQ doesn’t have this problem, he has never worked where he didn’t want to be out of self-doubt or false obligation to someone else’s values.  Now the padding that held this ancient psychic garbage avalanche at bay is gone. Now that I’ve retired from that safe but miserable lifestyle, the pact I made with the universe when I retired, intending never to backslide isn’t easily broken.  It is almost impossible to put ill-fitting shoes back on blistered feet once you’ve taken them off.

Yesterday we visited 15. Quince’s new digs in Cottonwood. It’s a different breed than the old Jerome venue, a modern Southwest style building with oodles of space, a large bar and a separate room for special occasions or just a full house. It was already busy even though this was only the second day at the new location.  We each had special of the day Blueberry Mint Margaritas and shared tortilla chips with guacamole and three flavors of salsa while waiting to talk to owner Vlad Costa. The food is still the same, absolutely the best Mexican anywhere. Vlad was extremely busy but took time out to talk to us about when we wanted the show and where we wanted to hang paintings. We are thinking mid-July for the show.

A painting of Taos Pueblo, 15.Quince in Cottonwood

Life is definitely in the “to be continued,” stage.  I’m moving toward oncoming challenges with a combination of apprehension and curiosity. Well, actually more than curiosity. I sense that an entirely new way of being in the world is about to come through the door. Is it actually possible to live by faith intuition and the seat of your pants? To be continued.                                                                               

 

SPRING: SANTA FE ICE CREAM AND BOMBS

Last Sunday in Santa Fe PQ and I sat on the plaza eating ice cream cones watching people enjoy the greening grass as birds seemed to float on the air from tree to tree.  The clarity of spring made hope seem as close as the grass on the ground and I felt a bit high from the fresh air. A young man with dread locks drifted on his park bench almost as high as the birds. He was in another dimension but somehow his obviously blissful state fit the light as air afternoon. The whole world seemed transparent. Time moves by quickly holding a measure of eternity like a pond. But on a round world it can only flow in circles.

I feel subtle changes in the experience of time. I’m also more aware of how small our individual piece of it is. Time down here on earth moves too fast to catch so I mentally zoom out to scope a larger span, always hoping for a time-lapse shot.  I know there are horrible things happening with each tick on the cosmic clock.  It seems they occur closer together lately.  There seems to be a crisis generator operating out of the mass mind.  Disasters seldom come one at a time.  But, the transcendent world seems still and remote while we desperate humans thrash about in panic, like ants whose hill was kicked by a giant.  Strewn across the earth are all the horrors of the past. When I watch the evening news, I remember the way my uncle’s cattle bellowed and stomped enthralled and in fear while encircling the area where one of their own was being butchered, although greatly disturbed they couldn’t leave the scene. It appears that 24-hour news spawns the same reaction in the human herd.

Rain on the Mountain

The beautiful and the terrible are parallel channels. Perhaps one couldn’t exist without the other as a defining contrast. Yet, they aren’t honorably equal. The terrible emerges as a shadow behind the beautiful, especially when too much contrast makes the shadow very dark. 

 Astrologically, there were some explosive aspects at the time of the Boston Marathon bombing, and the Texas fertilizer plant explosion.  Pluto square Uranus, the god of the underworld, instigator of deep plunges into dark places, and radical cleansing experiences was in a tense aspect with Uranus the planet of quirky behavior and unexpected changes. In addition, the Sun was conjunct Mars the god of war in the sign of Aries, traditionally ruled by Mars, but so was Venus goddess of love and beauty, in this case perhaps, a bitter twisted love. Two young men who seemed normal on the outside but were apparently building up an explosive inner pressure, do they also reflect a larger unconscious tension. Their use of an exploding pressure cooker has a powerful symbolic facet. Terrorists often act out unconscious contracts and collective tensions. 

Complex times push us beyond ourselves into situations that bring out the best and the worst. Again, the contrast makes the picture pop. I sense we are all inwardly dispersing on the floodwaters, blowing over shores with hurricanes and blanketed in deep snow. This summer in the Southwest, it appears that we will bake like the dry earth, but it is all evidence of primal forces. We have the weather inside as well as outside and we are both victims and co-creators whether we like it or not. 

I don’t believe that our neighboring planets cause anything, but the universe is just that and the changing patterns of the cosmos are replicated on every level. Meaning is ours, as we explain to ourselves why the gods should not eat us. I remember that Gurdjieff used to tell his students that we humans are food for the Moon. I’m beginning to get a glimmer of what he meant.  For one thing, the Moon has always been associated astrologically to soul, moods, emotional connection to family and tribe and sense of belonging. When distorted by unfulfilled emotional needs it does indeed become a predator hiding behind our personal shadow. One of our modern delusions is the belief that we humans are rational creatures. It should be obvious that we are first emotional and that emotion trumps reason every time. Here in America we fear terrorists and feel safer with our guns even though a family member is more likely to shoot us than a terrorist is to blow us up. It is this primal fear of the dangerous outsider, someone from an alien tribe that grips us. Ironically, probably the same emotion inspires the terrorists. 

Potted Cat Through the Window

I’m not suggesting that we should try to be more rational. Part of the problem is that we are trying to be rational and the much stronger emotional component devours reason and takes command.  What I believe is more significant is that we unapologetically honor our emotional nature and develop it rather than leaving it in a primitive undeveloped state. Emotional desires hijack reason and take it for a ride. There are IQ tests to evaluate intellectual potential and ability but emotion develops as best it can or as worst, as the case may be. 

Once again, a weekend is approaching.  It is beautiful outside after several days of cold and wind. I’m trying to focus on some projects that have been awaiting my attention for several weeks. What is the emotional component that keeps me sidetracked? I’ve been noticing that such interruptions are also avoidance reactions to ideas that challenge me emotionally. It is time to step up the game and come out of hiding.  The winter nap is over.  Of course, there are seasons on many levels. The heart holds this knowledge. I must relearn its wisdom.

TUMBLING TUMBLEWEEDS MEET THE FENCE

I have not written much lately. PQ and I have been busy preparing for a new art showing at 15.Quince, a wonderful Mexican restaurant in Jerome Arizona. However, spring is a changeable time, and today owner/chef Vladimir Costa informed us that the restaurant is moving to a new building in Cottonwood.  Here we were trying to get everything together for a show the first week in May and now the date of the show is open-ended.   Actually, our life has been moving unpredictably in other ways as well. It is the essence of spring for events to be up-in-the-air like the tumbleweeds blown from who knows where and stopped in their tumble only by our coyote fence.  Maybe we are the same way.  We tumble for a while until some obstacle halts us and that is the beginning of the next focus in life.

My feline friends have been an interesting lesson.  A few mornings ago, I opened the door to see who was coming to breakfast and the yellow cat, white cat and little feral black cat were there but so was a large longhaired yellow cat with the same face as the adolescent yellow.  I’ve never seen this cat before and she hasn’t been back since. However, what followed left me wondering just how the cat people communicate.  The new adult yellow cat acted as if she knew all about this morning ritual. There was nothing shy or surprised in her behavior.  But, the really interesting part was the way her presence influenced the others. The little black cat that never allowed me very near, and ran for cover if I looked at her directly, suddenly was at ease and rubbing against my leg.  I reached down and stroked her back and she arched it rubbing against my leg like a house cat. This was very strange. The other cats were also at ease with each other. The black cat has continued to be far more sociable and friendly. It seemed that the older yellow cat had communicated to the others the belief that we were all family and then went back to wherever she came from. She was wearing a silver collar, so she is somebody’s treasured pet.

The more I watch animals the more I realize that we seriously underestimate them.  The Starlings that live in our bathroom vent have a very complex language that includes wing flapping and shaking as well as an incredible verbal repertoire.  These creatures may not have a language of words but they certainly communicate some complex messages among themselves and even with us if we pay attention.  We humans are very homocentric. Humans may have to face this prejudice soon.

We took the drop cloth out of the dining area and enjoyed a few days of living in the whole house. But, I’ve changed during the past three weeks.  I actually miss the clutter of brushes, paint and drop cloth in the middle of the house, while PQ works intensely with flying colors (literally). In fact, something is definitely shifting in my mind and heart.  Not only am I OK with the dining room studio, I’m letting go of the fear of driving over the edge into the unknown without any foreseeable income.  Much to my surprise, I'm feeling a new calm expectancy about what I might find at the bottom of the drop.

I put together this slide show of some of PQ’s new work with his song, “Among the Stars” in the background.  

Unusually large amounts of allergens in the air are challenging PQ’s lungs, and he finds our Taos’ altitude another obstacle but stays positive. We hope someday to live in Cottonwood again but are rolling with the spring winds right now.  Like the tumbleweeds, we cannot know just which fence will stop us.  Sometimes at night after the lights go out I think we are doomed to run out of resources and luck and all the possible awful outcomes attack me in the dark. PQ is not inclined to these attacks.  He assumes that there is always an opportunity around the corner.  I once read that the sign of Cancer needs to emotionally binge on dreadful possibilities now and then.  After we explore the worst, we have that covered and can move on with life. Cancer isn't my sun sign, Gemini is but, with Cancer rising and Moon conjunct Jupiter in Cancer it starts everything I do. After I go through one of these dark night confrontations with doom, my upbeat Gemini sun rises ready to go out to lunch and window shopping since I don't have to come up with the mortgage until the end of the month.  

Yes, change is in the air and in the earth too.  I can feel it like melting ice beneath my feet.  It doesn’t provide a steady foothold but the thaw is encouraging.